i love in ct and was wondering about going about training a horse to be able to hunt off because out in the woods you can get really close to a deer so i think it would also be very fun and a challenge to do. so if anyone does this or knows how to go about training a horse to do this please comment

all comments greatly appreciated

You could check out these groups and ask them questions.  They are mounted shooting groups for competition but they do have to train their horses to be shot off of.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MidwestMountedShooters/

http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/cowboy_mounted_shooters/

The local chapter of a Civil War Cavalry re-enactor's group also practices shooting off their horses.  I suppose there are a few in your part of the country.

There a couple mounted shooting groups in CT.  You can also do training/lessons in mounted shooting in parts of CT.  I live up North (in CT) and there are places up here that do that.

This is a topic I am very interested in as well because we are thinking about using our gelding (if he cant be sold as a H/J) for my fiancee in civil war reenactments. Dont know how he would handle a gunshot, but we were thinking about just going in a big field with an experienced rider on him and having someone else across the field shoot blanks to see how he reacts. Anyone think that's a godawful idea?

FocusCalmPatience:

Dont know how he would handle a gunshot, but we were thinking about just going in a big field with an experienced rider on him and having someone else across the field shoot blanks to see how he reacts. Anyone think that's a godawful idea?

I shoot my .22 from time to time across our little practice trail.  The horses usually flinch the first few shots, look around and make sure things are OK, then they go about their business.  I'm not sure how they would re-act when the sound and odor of gunpowder emanates from their back.  Familiarity, of course, makes for a trained horse.

By the way, there is a video on youtube of hunters packing their kill and having trouble with the horse.  The smell of death, I guess.  In fact, the horse bucked and kicked the hunter.  Search under "horse kick".

i think that haveing some1 shoot blanks around your horse to see how he reacts is a great idea to see how he handles evrything is a great idea and i never thought about how the horse would react to a dead aniaml

FocusCalmPatience:

This is a topic I am very interested in as well because we are thinking about using our gelding (if he cant be sold as a H/J) for my fiancee in civil war reenactments. Dont know how he would handle a gunshot, but we were thinking about just going in a big field with an experienced rider on him and having someone else across the field shoot blanks to see how he reacts. Anyone think that's a godawful idea?

Check out this website.  It talks about training mounted shooting horses and they even have earplugs for horses. 

http://www.ajhorses.com/intro_to_mounted_shooting.aspx

I have done the CMSA and it is fun but not really hunting.  I started by going to a clinic the local chapter had .  Because they were experienced in the process and so were there horses my horse adapted quickly and by the end of the clinic I was shooting baloons going in the pattern a a good speed.  One issue one of our horses had was that we have actually hunted from her using a rifle and requiring her to stand still as we fired it..very different from CMSA and she would stop every time we fired at first. We aalso use the crack of a stock whip at meal time to bring the horses in so they get used to the sound.  At first I just stood outside the barn and cracked the whip as they were brought in.   Now if you crack the whi they come running.  We alsoused pop guns.  Hunting is different because you are tracking a wild animal and I thin that can be a bigger issue than the sound of hte gun.  Aslo packing one out of the bush.  I think some outfitters could give you some gidance there.